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Ellen Jovin belongs that rare breed of human with a passion for grammar. You will too if you spend a few minutes with her, your grammar anxiety melting away in minutes. Thats what happens when apostrophe-challenged Patrick meets Ellen at her Grammar Tabl

Steve Jobs last words were: Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow. Oscar Wilde went with: Either that wallpaper goes, or I do. (At least, thats how the story goes.) But the way most of us part company with language at the end of our lives is more halting and gradual. E

How do you keep your language alive while also protecting the health of elders? Thats been the quandary facing Ojibwe educators during the pandemic. As native speakers, Ojibwe elders were the primary teachers of the language, but they were also the most

For centuries, Russians have dismissed the Ukrainian language as Little Russian, its speakers as simple-minded peasants. The Kremlin has sporadically and unsuccessfully tried to suppress the language. Now Russias invasion of Ukraine has driven even some

Kavita Pillay recently moved to Helsinki with her Finnish husband and half-Finnish daughter. While husband and daughter effortlessly embraced their new linguistic surroundings, Kavita...didnt. In this episode, she seeks guidance from other immigrants wit

We cant always find words to describe our emotions—not in English, at least. In this episode, Saleem Reshamwala asks friends who speak other languages to share their favorite emotion words and phrases. He also seeks guidance from psychologist Ashley Ruba

For hundreds of years, people living in Louisianas bayou country have spoken French. But rising sea levels are submerging entire communities, forcing people to abandon their homes. As native French speakers move away, will the language survive in this mo

Theyre not in American dictionaries yet, but the terms, punching up and punching down are on the lips of many comedians. With the help of linguist and journalist Ben Zimmer and British comedian Richard Herring, we trace the migration of these words from

In this episode, we tell the inspiring, heartbreaking story of Radio Haiti. For several decades, the station broadcast not just in French, spoken by Haitis elite, but also in Kreyòl, spoken by rich and poor alike. The Kreyòl-language programs communicate

Does your grandmother call a chest of drawers a dresser? Or a bureau? Or perhaps a chiffonier? Over the years and across regions, Americans have favored many different words for furniture—and much else. Since 1929, the Linguistic Atlas Project has been d